


All She Needs To Do (to get what she wants)

by QuenchiestCactusJuice99



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula-centric, Explicit Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 14:40:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuenchiestCactusJuice99/pseuds/QuenchiestCactusJuice99
Summary: She is Four and blue flames drip from her fingers like pieces of a cloudless sky.She is Six and they call her a prodigy.She is Eight and Father says lucky, born lucky.She is Ten and Mother is gone.She is Twelve and lightning leaps from her hands as if trying to escape her hold like Mother, like Zuzu, like her ‘friends’.She is Fourteen and sanity is slipping through her fingers quicker than she can snatch it back.





	All She Needs To Do (to get what she wants)

She is Four and Mommy smiles down at her with love, she is Four and too little to say her brother’s name, so she calls him Zuzu, she is Four and blue flames drip from her fingers like pieces of a cloudless sky. She is Four and Papa is proud, she is Four and she has never wanted anything more than to see that pride on his face again.

She is Four and all she needs to do to get what she wants is to ask. “Pwease, Zuzu?”

She is Six and they call her a prodigy, she is Six and blue is her favorite color because her fire makes Father smile. She is Six and Mother’s smiles begin to look stilted, she is Six and Mother’s eyes shine with worry and concern. She is Six and meets a glum girl and an excitable one, and Mother calls them ‘friends’ and ‘good influences on a developing mind’.

She is Six and all she needs to do to get what she wants is taunt. “Are you too chicken?” She says, words prickly as she can make them, “I suppose you’re scared.”

She is Eight and Father says lucky, born lucky, she is Eight and born lucky and Zuzu is lucky to be born, she is Eight and ‘Zuzu’ becomes derogatory instead of endearing. She is Eight and Mother’s smiles are stiff and fake, she is Eight and the only emotion behind Mother’s eyes is fear, she is Eight and she hates dolls, with their empty eyes and fake, stitched-on smiles. She is Eight and her fire roars, she is Eight and her fire  _ hungers. _

She is Eight and all she needs to do to get what she wants is to be sneaky and tricky. “Missing food from the kitchens?” She says, clueless and innocent-as-can-be, the taste of sweetbread still lingering on her tongue. “Did someone get hungry?” Because some of the servants’ families are starving and jobless and it is not implausible that one of them would steal something.

She is Ten and Mother is gone, she is Ten and she is better than Zuzu at everything, she is Ten and now Father only smiles for  _ her. _ She is Ten and she is being consumed by her need for Father’s approval and pride, she is Ten and they say she is skilled like no other before her besides Father, she is Ten and Father becomes the only way up.

She is Ten and all she needs to do to get what she wants is manipulate. “I guess you don’t need this toy, really, if you never play with it.” The words crunch between her clean white teeth, bitter and harsh as the worst of Uncle’s teas, at the thought that Mother left her beloved Zuzu things when her despised daughter was left nothing but fading memories of looks of love. The dragon plush burns at her touch and Zuzu looks horrified and so terribly, awfully sad, but not angry.  _ Why does he never look angry, why does he never  _ ** _hate her like Mother-_ **

She is Twelve and now Zuzu is gone too, she is Twelve and now the smell of burnt hay and straw is commonplace, she is Twelve and she destroys practice dummies faster than her instructors can set them up. She is Twelve and lightning leaps from her hands as if trying to escape her hold like Mother, like Zuzu, like her ‘friends’, she is Twelve and Father is no more proud now than he was when she began training, she is Twelve and convinced that Mother never really loved her at all.

She is Twelve and the only thing she needs to do to get what she wants is smile and threaten. So she does. She smiles, cold and sweet as frozen honey, she smiles, sharp as shards of jagged glass and twice as lethal, oh yes, how she smiles. “Acid will fill your blood and stream from your eyes, dripping from your cheeks and pooling in your lungs,” She says, words sliding from a quicksilver tongue, smooth as serpent skin, saturated with sugared malice. “I will wear the stench of your scorched flesh as my favorite perfume, for it will be but the most beautiful fragrance of victory to my nose, and I will dance to your dying screams of agony, for they will be but the sweetest of music to my ears.”

She is Fourteen and sanity is slipping through her fingers quicker than she can snatch it back. She is Fourteen and she has failed, she is Fourteen and Father must hate her, she is Fourteen and Mother is back. She is Fourteen and she tries to kill Zuzu because he’s back too and maybe if she gets rid of him than Mother will go away again, she is Fourteen and Mother’s reflection says “I always loved you” and she  _ shrieks  _ at the untruth because Mother  _ hated her. _

She is Fourteen when she screams out her despair to the sky that she once held in her hands. She is Fourteen when the sky deafens itself to her cries. She is Fourteen when it all comes crashing down around her.

She is Fourteen and all she needs do to get what she wants is beg.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] All She Needs To Do (to get what she wants)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24666595) by [Oceantail Podfics (Oceantail)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceantail/pseuds/Oceantail%20Podfics)


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